WE need a new prison. In fact, we probably need more than one — certainly one in Kingston and another in the West, where crime is running amok and, along with the mountains of garbage, threatens to choke off our lifeblood. Current facilities have long been deemed in violation of international standards.

In Kingston, the main prison, the Tower Street Correctional Centre, otherwise known as General Penitentary (GP), occupies an area described by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) as one of great architectural significance.

“Most of the buildings [on] Tower Street possess exquisite Jamaican Georgian architecture and, along with the General Penitentiary, are fundamental features of the Tower Street historical streetscape,” the JNHT said in an impact assessment. The study emphasised that these buildings be preserved and integrated into proposed development plans.

Downtown Kingston’s redevelopment is one of those issues that the country has been discussing for the past 30 years, at least. Of late, I sense a fermenting urgency and growing awareness of the potential value of real estate smack on the magnificent Kingston Harbour, the seventh-largest natural harbour in the world. Whatever plans are afoot, including land grabbing, by any means necessary, an overcrowded prison, likely will not fit. It needs to be relocated, but the country does not have the money. We are bankrupt with crumbling physical and social infrastructure in many areas.

Enter our former colonial master — Great Britain — with a plan to donate a significant cost of a new prison. Prime Minister David Cameron unwrapped the gift in an address to Parliament, September 30. The negative feedback was so forceful it seemed like even our ancestors, long dead, rose en masse, to ask Cameron to depart forthwith, and take his gift with him.

But if reasonable people agree that the country needs the prison, what accounts for the response to Cameron’s announcement? Through the morass of emotions, my own included, and the arguments and counter-arguments, I came up with the following reasons.

First, regardless of the giver, the gift of a prison comes with some embarrassment — a little like your boss handing you a large bottle of mouthwash in the middle of staff meeting. Light dawns slowly; the overwhelming feeling is not one of gratitude, but a desire, born of shame, to curl up and die regardless of the fact that now you have the use of mouthwash without having to buy it yourself.

For us, a gift of a prison reminds us of our embarrassing culture of criminality and violence at home and abroad so much so that scarce resources, or more wholesome gifts, such as hospitals, schools, children’s and old people’s homes, and animal shelters, have to take second place to the need to contain our criminals.

Second, it reminds us that we are broke, and regardless of why and how much we need a prison, we cannot afford it ourselves. Infrastructure, like prisons, probably fall into category of things that a country should be able to provide for itself.

If one takes the mouthwash analogy further, just like the employee who does not want her colleagues to see her being offered a gift of a deeply personal hygiene item from her boss, Jamaicans did not want the rest of the world to see us being offered a prison as a gift from another country. Need, and one’s inability to attend to them, is profoundly disempowering. Being reminded of that by sources deemed partially culpable is an invitation to lash out.

Third, the gift is from Great Britain — the former colonial power responsible for holding our ancestors in slavery for almost 200 years and using their labour and our resources to build their country. There is more than a twist of irony that they who owe us so much, and are refusing to accept that they do, have come in a condescending and high-handed way to offer us a prison.

It was rank display of arrogance by Cameron, who not only refused to speak to our national press, but dared to stand in our Parliament and tell us how to be; how to deal with the trauma left in the wake of one of the worst crimes against humanity. Nothing about Cameron’s approach suggests that, almost 200 years after Emancipation, he sees us as equals. Rather, he reinforced that ours is a relationship between the powerful and the powerless, and as it was then, the racial connotations remained — the powerful white ‘backra massa’ crapping on a bunch of black people.

Fourth, the gift comes with caveats, which in every situation will yield opposition, because it is arm-twisting. In this case, the prison will not be for our home-grown miscreants. We must also agree to take back anyone deemed to be Jamaican currently serving time in British jails and rid their taxpayers of the responsibility to fund their incarceration. Legitimate questions are being raised about the criteria used to determine who “Jamaican” is, and more importantly about the capacity of a small country to absorb hundreds of deviants beyond what we already have. There is also the question of when and where does the agreement end? Is this an open-ended situation where, henceforth and forever more, anyone with the vaguest connections who commits a crime in England would be shipped to Jamaica to serve his/her sentence? And, what happens to the inmates once they have completed their sentences?

Fifth, and most egregious is the Government’s continuing refusal to level with the people on critical matters of national interest. The attitude leaves us with the feeling that our Government cannot be trusted. It does not matter the merits of any project; once it becomes shrouded in secrecy and misinformation it will correctly raise suspicion and controversy. Furthermore, the Government’s choice to have Cameron visit Jamaica for a day to tell us that he is not interested in reparation, but he is offering us a prison, was a monumental misjudgement for many reasons, including whether they thought the country would be more accepting of it, sealed with the European stamp of authority.

Plead human rights and economics all you want. If it comes wrapped in disrespect, expect people to lash out. After all, we are not slaves anymore. Or are we?

Grace Virtue, PhD, is a social justice advocate.